Humanist Counter-Theory in the Age of Misandry

I’ll decide if you were raped, not you

Please be forewarned that many people will find this article highly offensive. That being the case, a disclaimer is in order, particularly for those easily offended.

This article was written with the intent of offending. In fact, that is pretty much its primary purpose.

Unfortunately, when addressing instances of male disadvantage or female power in this society, offence is a necessary evil. We are a culture blinded and brainwashed by decades (arguably millenia) of disinformation and propaganda about men and women. We are also a species of animal more or less hardwired to take a dim view of compassion for men and boys. This leaves us with few tools to rattle people out of complacency and into a thoughtful discussion of those issues.

Intentional offence is one of them, and it is one proven to work as this website has repeatedly demonstrated.

This disclaimer is not an apology for, nor a retraction of, any of the points in the article. It is simply a clarification of context regarding the articles’ style, content and delivery. When society evolves to the point where we can have real discussions about issues facing men and boys, then the need for this kind of provocation will end, at which point the editorial staff of this website may consider removing this article from its archives.

This particular article is dedicated to Mary P. Koss, an influential researcher who has demonstrated over and over how the crime of rape permeates our culture and results in a living nightmare for women across the western world. Sort of. –PE

Second note: Male victims of sexual assault by women who are frequently told that what happened to them is funny or something they should be proud of, by cops, the popular culture, even so-called friends, will understand the exact intent of this article. –DE

Look, ladies, I get it. I really do. You think you were raped. At least that is your claim. And even if we take for granted that you are telling the truth about some asshole that ignored your insistence that you did not want to have sex; who even ignored your repeated, tearful pleas to be left alone, and instead forced himself on you sexually, violating your personal boundaries and bodily integrity in order to penetrate you in one orifice or another, that is still a far cry from justifying the use of a word as strong as rape.

In fact, you may be so emotional about the matter that you are not going to be the most reliable informant of the facts. As an alleged victim, you are certainly not the most qualified arbiter of what constitutes rape to begin with. It is undoubtedly better that you just shut up about the matter – go somewhere where we don’t have to look at you or listen to you complain — and let someone more capable gather the facts and make a mature sensible decision about what happened.

Like me, for instance.

Actually, I can’t think of anyone better qualified to make a rational determination of the facts; who can avoid the hysterics often associated with the claim of rape, or things that might be misinterpreted as rape, and who can make a sound, considered decision about what happened to you and what to call it. So please, give the rape crisis line and everyone else a break while I sort things out.

You can just tell me what happened, then go off and cry, or go on Oprah, or do whatever it is women do when they think that someone has raped them. I will sort through all the details and then come back to you later, after I have had some time to make a considered and complete evaluation.

I will be the one to decide if you were raped, or just someone who was temporarily inconvenienced.

I have to tell you, though, that I am not one to just go around calling every claim a rape on behalf of women just because they drum up a few tears, or have a few bruises to show off.

Like that girl at Steubenville; the one who partied a little too hearty and then just happened to be penetrated by some of the guys she was partying with. Opportunistic sex? Yeah. Rape? No, not rape. Not even close.

All the outrage I read about the sympathy for the “perpetrators” was way off the mark. These guys needed alcohol and drug education, perhaps a good talking to, but not prison. Prison is for rapists, real rapists, not a couple of kids that got carried away at a party.

Then there was that woman, whatever her name was, in India that made worldwide headlines just a few months ago; the one that was murdered and allegedly raped on a bus in Delhi. The facts on that one don’t wash, either. Sure, she was beaten. There is evidence to support that, particularly in that she died from her injuries. Without a doubt, she was murdered.

But not raped, so let’s try not to get carried away with the righteous indignation, mmkay?

The fact that she was allegedly penetrated sexually during the course of her attack does not prove anything. Contrary to modern social fantasy, rape is not about penetration. Not in the least. I know, we have some slanted legislation and a few haughty pundits that state otherwise, but we will get to more of that in a minute.

I mentioned Oprah earlier. She’s another one of those “rape” victims that seem to crawl out of the woodwork when there is a camera around. Her contention is that she came from a really bad family and that on top of poverty and a lot of other problems, she was raped when she was nine years old.

Assuming she is alleging that she was sexually penetrated (and that she was even telling the truth to begin with), she gets crossed off the list of real victims, even if her story makes good fodder for building a TV empire. It’s still not rape. It is still not even close.

As a matter of fact, it simply can’t be rape. None of these fanciful stories are legitimate rapes. I have looked at the facts and made a clear, totally supportable conclusion. The girl in Steubenville wasn’t raped. The woman in India wasn’t raped and Oprah Winfrey sure as hell wasn’t raped.

And the reason for it is as simple as it is irrefutably factual.

Only women can rape.

Only men can be victims. Rape is not even a crime of which men are capable. Well, sure, they are physically capable, in the abstract I suppose, but only if you define rape to a narrow and archaic view like forced penetration. When it comes to real rape, which is when men are forced to penetrate, it is only women who can do it.

I understand — you have doubts. You have likely been ill informed and misled your whole life about what rape is and who it really affects.

Need I remind you that no so long ago anyone you know would have pointed to the horizon and told you just how obvious it was that the earth was flat? It is still right there for you to see, is it not? Look around you! Isn’t the earth flat?

Fortunately, through the informative use of science and a bird’s eye view of the planet, we moved past myopic conclusions drawn from the tunnel vision of surface impressions and ignorance.

The world is not flat, or the center of the universe, and men cannot rape. It is a crime exclusively perpetrated by women.

???

Is your blood boiling yet? Do you want to put a fist through sheet rock? Is my heartless and insensitive handling of the above “victims” making you see red? Do you want my head on a stick in the town square for the sheer depravity and sickness in what I am writing?

Well, let me tell you, I feel your outrage. I get where it comes from; which is to say that you are driven by decency and humanity to instinctively recoil from gratuitous and malicious indifference to the suffering of innocent victims.

You are, after all, a person of compassion, right? You would never ignore the suffering of a victim or minimize the pain and crippling isolation of someone so traumatized. Well, wait, not so fast. You are probably not near as compassionate as you think.

I will explain, but allow me to preface that by saying that if you finish reading this and you are still outraged at me instead of Mary Koss, then your compassion is about as real as a Crystal Gail Mangum rape claim, which is to say it is complete bullshit.

If, in the end, you still think I am the problem. I’ll do more than just proclaim that you are a hypocrite, I’ll prove it. The only question remaining will be whether or not you have the moral integrity and courage to admit it. Decent human beings will.

The deliberately blind with no right to be angry about anything won’t.

First, a little recent history on the study of rape in this culture. Mary P. Koss is a widely-quoted and highly influential feminist writer on the subject. Indeed, so influential is the University of Arizona scholar that she has long been considered a “go to” authority on the subject of rape by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. This is not of little gravity given the CDCs influence on government policy. With thanks to Tamen of Genderratic, here is a brief overview of her relationship with the CDC.

2003 : Selected to direct the Sexual Violence Applied Research Advisory Group, VAWNET.org, the national online resource on violence against women funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

2003 : Member, team of expert advisors, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on teen partner violence;

2003 : Panel of Experts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control on scales to measure intimate partner violence, resulted in the publication of CDC Intimate Partner Violence compendium, 2005;

2003-4: Consultant, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC Intimate Partner Violence compendium, 2005 IPV Compendium on assessment of sexual violence and inclusion as recommended standard assessments in the field of two Koss-authored assessments (Sexual Experiences Survey-victimization, and Sexual Experiences Survey-perpetration)

That is quite an impressive track record, especially for someone who has been caught red-handed exaggerating the number of female rape victims to ridiculous proportions while simultaneously making similar efforts to erase the incidence of male rape victims, including children, from public view.

Mary P Koss has been doing the same thing with victims and perpetrators of rape as I did in the first few paragraphs of Juvenalian satire in this article, with two key differences. One, she denies the victimization of male victims instead of females. And two, her work is not satire; it is research done in the public trust for an agency that sets government policy and plays a highly influential role in forming public opinion.

Have you heard anywhere that 1 in 4 women will be raped in their lifetime? You can thank Mary P. Koss for that statistical sound bite, and for the fact that it is totally and completely bogus. She was so anxious to create that kind of ideological ear candy that she drove her own train off the tracks on research methods.

There were numerous, rookie-league errors with the data gathered in Koss’ study, but for the sake of brevity we’ll just address the basics here. Koss threw in a ringer of a question in her survey of three thousand college women:

“Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?”

Given the frequency of college age women who party and end up having sex with someone and later regretting it, and given the social pressure still on men to provide alcohol and other party materials for women’s pleasure, Koss’ question was a set of brass knuckles hidden inside a boxing glove. It got her just the result she was looking for.

Two follow-up statistics demonstrate the point well enough. One, 42% of these “rape victims” went on to later date and have additional sexual relations with their “rapists,” and, get this, only 25% of the women surveyed that Koss counted as victims agreed that they had been raped.

At this point an honest scholar would just acknowledge their methodological errors, write off their study and start from scratch again in an attempt to obtain some valid conclusions — which explains why Koss went full steam ahead with the results.

It did not take long for Koss to come up with a 1 in 4 number like that. In fact, if men were asked the same questions as qualifiers for being a rape victim, the same exact number, 1 in 4, would emerge from the research. With Koss’ methodology, twenty–five percent of the men you know, your fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands and sons are rape victims. One fourth of the males in this culture have been egregiously violated in the very worst of ways. I can just see Dr. Phil staging group hugs on TV. Well, if anyone gave a damn about those men.

Do you think 1 in 4 men have been raped?

Are you outraged that I am treating the idea like a joke?

Not being satisfied with simply manufacturing victims that do not exist, Koss takes the next logical step for any ideologue who wants to show that only women can be victims of rape, and only men can be perpetrators. She produces a paper that erases the idea that men and boys can be victims in any way.

“It would also be desirable to conduct further quantitative inquiry using the revised SES (Koss et al. 2007), which contains items that have been crafted with behavior-specific wording to elicit information on a range of SV experiences. This will make it possible to base men’s rape prevalence estimates with more specificity on acts that involve sustaining forced penetration, leaving less leeway for men’s individual perceptions of what constitutes ‘forced sex.’”

There is much more available from Koss that ensures her intentions are being taken accurately. With credit to Tamen from the Generratic blog, the following observation:

But let’s take a look at the revised SES Koss et al would like to use instead on the Chilean dataset:

Here is a quote from the 2007 paper by Koss et al: Revising the SES: A Collaborative Process to Improve Assessment of Sexual Aggression and Victimization

“We acknowledge the inappropriateness of female verbal coercion and the legitimacy of male perceptions that they have had unwanted sex. Although men may sometimes sexually penetrate women when ambivalent about their own desires, these acts fail to meet legal definitions of rape that are based on penetration of the body of the victim. Furthermore, the data indicate that men’s experiences of pressured sex are qualitatively different from women’s experiences of rape. Specifically, the acts experienced by men lacked the level of force and psychologically distressing impact that women reported. (Struckman-Johnson, 1988; Struckman-Johnson & Struckman-Johnson, 1994).

We worked diligently to develop item wording that captured men’s sense of pressure to have sex and draw their responses into an appropriate category of coercion instead of to rape items. The revised wording is discussed in more detail later in the article.

Cut to the chase. What Koss is saying, through the unblinking text of two very different studies, is that when women say they weren’t raped, they really were, and when men say they were raped, they really weren’t.

That, uh, “revised wording”? Men who are forced to penetrate under physical or any other kind of duress are not raped. That perception clearly has had an impact on matters at the CDC and other entities charged with the dissemination of information on rape and sexual assault.

In a recent media interview of TyphonBlue, she pointed out clearly how males who are raped get classified as “made to penetrate” (Read: NOT RAPED) in figures from the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NIPSVS) by the CDC, the same organization where Koss has had so much influence.

Now, let’s compare that to the same number of female victims that fell into the “Completed Forced Penetration” category.

“[The] CDC apparently found it inappropriate to call it rape – or rather they think it’s a unique male victimization that is separate from rape. The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) does not even bother to include it in the survey even if it under Sexual Offenses Act of 2003 Section 4 is punishable with a sentence up to life (SOA 2003 doesn’t call it rape either). The latest CSEW did a split-sample experiment to test a new set of questions. The new questions had an option that male victims who had been made to penetrate could answer yes. The analysts classified those who answered yes to that question as NON-VICTIMS.”

At this point it would probably good to remind you that this kind of hegemony over and shaping of descriptive language produces much more than just an imbalance in empathy between male and female victims of rape. As with most ideological objectives, it invariably leads to money, power and ultimately legislation that affects all victims.

The FBI, in January of 2012 redefined rape from a standard that had been applied since 1929. It now defines rape as, “[T]he penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” This is according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In other words, to be a rape, it must involve penetration, which makes male rape victims legally invisible. It also ensures that whatever slight awareness of them actually existed is further eroded.

If you still think I am the problem, and not the legacy of Koss’ work, then you are part of this deprivation.

Addressing victims of rape is a federally and privately funded industry of significant proportions. It provides not only employment and organizational underwriting, it also serves as the academic raison d’être for ideologues like Mary P Koss. Entire careers are carved out of the institutional bedrock on theories, and often ideologies, as we see in the case of academic feminism.

Koss has a vested ideological, professional and financial interest in the idea that men cannot be raped, and even in the idea that whatever they may experience at the hands of female rapists, it does not impact them with the same intensity, or need for assistance (cha-ching), as when the same thing happens to women.

The short and sorry version of Koss’ take on male rape by forced envelopment is that it does not happen, and even if it did, men aren’t bothered by it. They have no pain that needs to be addressed, nor is the female rapist a problem we need to recognize.

In fact, this is woven into the progression of language we see from Koss as it morphs though the body of her work. She goes from not wanting to label women raping men as rape, then not wanting to label it “forced sex,” and then changes it to “unwanted” sex and ultimately to “ambivalent” sex.

Let’s see, even anecdotally, how that holds up. The following is another excerpt from the Genderratic Blog, and was originally posted to r/mensrights. Be advised, it is very graphic and may be disturbing for some.

First time I’ve told this story, other than to my doctor, therefore – throw away account. Also, I’m Swedish, so I’m sorry for all the grammar faults.

I was at a friend’s party and got a few beers. I believe I was the least drunk there. One gal started to talk to me and coming on to me. I had a girlfriend at the time and I wasn’t even attracted to her (big as a hippo), so I tried to ignore her.

A few hours later I was feeling very fuzzy in my head so I had to lie down for a bit. This struck me as odd, since the few beers were all I had to drink. Later on I understood that there were something else other than beers in one of the cans.

I woke up several hours later in my friend’s bed which were on another floor than the party was held. I was still feeling fuzzy in my head, so I didn’t really get what was going on. My hands and my feet were tied to the bed – each part in each corner. My dick hurt like crazy and I wanted to see what was going on down there. Someone was naked and riding my dick. It took me about five seconds until I understood that I was naked and was raped. It was the same girl who hit on me.

I screamed, but no one heard me. I tried to get away, but I couldn’t move, both because I was tied down and also because of her weight.

Fifteen horrible minutes later she decided she was done with me and let me loose. I collapsed and couldn’t move. She got dressed and went downstairs. I cried.

Apparently she couldn’t get my dick hard, so she had shuffed[sic] a Q-tip without the cotton up my urethra so it would keep straight. Four years later, it still hasn’t recovered.

Actually, this victim may be qualified under Koss’ personal criteria as a rape victim, not because he was drugged and restrained and forced to penetrate his attacker, not because he was assaulted while unconscious but because she penetrated his urethra with an object in order to produce a simulated erection.

The difference between this man being raped and just having “ambivalent” sex is a Q-tip. And unless it was the Q-tip that made him shed tears, then his pain wasn’t real either.

We have another case that was brought to the pages of this website. Former marine James Landrith met a woman in a night club through a friend and ended up having drinks with her. According to him, after agreeing to give the woman, who was pregnant, a ride home he wound up in a hotel, having been drugged, and woke up to find the woman on top of him with his penis inside her.

During the course of raping him, she threatened him with a rape allegation if he resisted, and also told him that any attempt to throw her off could harm her unborn child.

The rape happened before the young marine was 20 years old, and his response to the experience was typical for many victims of sexual trauma.

He embarked on a path of sexual recklessness and lost his trust in women, generally speaking. After 20 years of a dysfunctional reaction to the traumatic stress, he finally sought help and got it from a psychotherapist.

No thanks to Mary Koss. And likely no thanks to many readers of this article.

This attitude, so prevalent in modern culture, results in insensitivity that can only be described as mind boggling. From a report on the abuse of soldiers in Uganda. Eunice Owiny worked for Makerere University’s Refugee Law Project (RLP) to help displaced people from all over Africa work through their traumas. Here is a sample of what she discovered there:

“Men aren’t simply raped, they are forced to penetrate holes in banana trees that run with acidic sap, to sit with their genitals over a fire, to drag rocks tied to their penis, to give oral sex to queues of soldiers, to be penetrated with screwdrivers and sticks.”

Owiny may want to consult with Koss, as according to her worldview those men likely weren’t raped, but the banana trees were.

The social mechanics of this imbalance in empathy and concern is simple. Misandry, the hatred of men and boys and the indifference to their pain, is a social norm. Koss uses the natural human tendency to be blind to the pain and suffering of men in order to shroud her agenda and her ethical failings in research.

She doesn’t even have to work at it. The average human being will read the first few paragraphs of this article and indulge themselves in reflexive hatred for whoever wrote it. They will sputter out words like “despicable” and “horrible” like they had Tourette’s.

But move them down the column and their emotions change. The spontaneous outbursts calm down. They may even scratch their heads and mutter something weak about how we need to look more into this. They may even have a moment where they are forced to feel some compassion for male victims (though no outrage for how we treat them).

And then they will shrug that off and go right back to being angry with me for treating women victims with such egregious insensitivity.

All because I wrote a few paragraphs of harsh satire, metaphorically putting shoes on women that we force men to walk in every day of their lives…for real.

That is, as a rule, what we think of the pain of men.

Oh, and for those of you who think Mary Koss is wrong but I am still shameless and disgusting for saying what I did, I suggest a trip to the mirror because you are more disgusting than either of us.

I know what Koss is like. I can deal with her. She is an ideologue with an agenda and it is plastered all over everything she does. She doesn’t have empathy for men and she doesn’t pretend to.

In that way I understand Black men who say they would rather deal with an open redneck than a closet racist. At least they know what they are getting.

But for those prone to convulse with repugnance over some satire but who ultimately feel nothing over the suffering of men and boys, no matter how horrible or unfair, I really do hope you are angry.

And I invite you choke on it.

You, not Mary Koss, are the reason this kind of writing is necessary in the first place.

Elsewhere on AVfM

This is so stupid. Ok yea both genders can gwt raped woppdeedo. When i was 10 i was raped by 5 men i didnt even know. All i can remeber is that I was walking home got grabbed and woke up in a bed tied by my arms completly naked. It was dark and i was scared. I got raped. I WAS a virgin at the time. I have nigh mares about. And no i did not want it. I respect men very much on this topic but dont forget, girls are VERY sensative. So if u think my story/experience was not rape then go the f**k ahead i dont give 2 shits about it. So yea ! Asshole!

UnbiasedLawyer/Equalist

Never broken a law, raised a hand to anyone, or had a point of view that wasn’t LOVING, From the bottom of my heart. BUT I have witnessed MANY more women coming into my office for “inconveniences” and “false rapes” then legitimate rapes.

Don’t get me wrong.. The women below my comment was definitely raped (@jillianross) and what happened to her should NEVER happen.

But recently I decided to represent a young 18 y.o girl who wanted to press rape or sexual assault charges on a group of boys who had allegedly raped her.

She withheld The most crucial information.. information the would have saved me, the court, and the accused time and money.

– She willingly offered her alleged “rapists” oral sex

– She willingly consumed alcohol BEFORE meeting with these boys (so she wasn’t forced)

– She followed through with giving oral sex, with no problems, or altercations, then proceeded home.

IN COURT we found out, through evidence that after the event our “VICTIM” was inconvenienced due to the fact the one of the boys did not want to pursue a romantic relationship with her afterwards.

SHE said THAT’S what she called rape.

I no longer represent her. Last I heard, the boys were counter suing for work and school expenses..

UnbiasedLawyer/Equalist

Any girl in a situation similar to the one below needs spiritual help, not legal help.
Seeking legal help in a situation like this would

A. Ruin the life of the innocent
or B. Create legal backlash

BUT what I will say is “false rapes” creates a horrible image for society.. If this becomes more oh an issue the REAL victims of rape will find it harder to do anything about they’re situation.

If one group of people are crying wolf, the other group will feel the effects and distrust too. So if it’s not certain you got raped do some research. You don’t want dirt in your nails while you pointing do you? (goes both ways)

“NEVER SEEK LOVE WITH SEX,
NEVER SEEK SEX WITH LOVE,
NEVER USE SEX AS A MEANS TO SATISFY/HURT OTHRS OR YOURSELF.”
-by moi

If we all took these words into consideration the wold would be a better place

driversuz

Shut up and read the damned article, you moron.

PolySciMaster

so you just block anyone that disagrees with you…. what are you 5???

driversuz

No we just block screeching hysterical bimbos who aren’t smart enough to read the article before melting into puddles of misfiring synapses and feelz. Bye now.

Ah yes. School winds down for the holidays and the bored children flood the internet with their entitled discontent. Get a job, bitch.

driversuz

You have been banned because of a serious and direct violation of Comment Policy (trolling). [Ref: 3118]

Additional remarks:

Seagull.

fernsoles

Glad you tell it like it is, and thank you for starting a voice for men, looking forward to the next men’s conference this year.

driversuz

Read it with the sexes reversed.
Derp.

summer summers

Yes men can be raped. There’s no need to devalue a raped woman’s claims just to show THAT point. Also, btw, the woman in india WAS RAPED! You don’t even know the facts. Whilst i too wonder how it is rape when a woman freely drinks and hits on a man – your article comes across as crass and insulting to human beings.

driversuz

You have been banned because of a serious and direct violation of Comment Policy (trolling). [Ref: 3723]

Additional remarks:

Another hysterical feminist who doesn’t read or doesn’t comprehend what she reads. Seagull.

PolySciMaster

driversuz YOU are the troll on humanity.

driversuz

The dipshits are coming! The dipshits are coming!

Bryan Scandrett

Why you like you own post? Getting lonely over there in the echo chamber?

Mims

Hmm I don’t know if the this style and delivery is doing what you want it to do, which is to bring light to the challenges that men and boys who have been raped face when trying to take legal action. As much as I wish people of this world had critical thinking skills and an ability to understand an opposing or new view without getting angry or defensive, an overwhelming amount don’t. I think this style and delivery just does the complete opposite and probably inhibits people from actually seeing the points this article is trying to make. Just my opinion. Maybe some people do get through their “blinding rage” and see your points and maybe I just underestimate most peoples’ abilities. I guess what I’m wondering is what kind of person was this style of delivery trying to get a message it believes wouldn’t be considered if the satire and harshness wasn’t there? I understand and believe you have the right to be angry that male victims of sexual crimes are being marginalized. Injustice makes me angry as well. But I think if we want there to be real discussion and a real informing of these issues, harshness and satire that puts most people on the defense (even though it probably shouldn’t) is probably not the way to go. I don’t know, I just think it’s counter-productive, and maybe someone can explain or justify why it isn’t? Or was this piece just suppose to be more of a rant and wasn’t really about increasing the number of people who are aware and care about male marginalization when it comes to sexual crime?

driversuz

It’s not at all counter productive. “Real discussions” of this topic have been going on for decades, but they rarely reach the mainstream thanks in part to the influence of feminism (Read up on Erin Pizzey if you have any doubts.)

This style of delivery is doing exactly what we want it to do.

Mims

Sure. I believe it brings awareness but does it get people who wouldn’t have already agreed to actually agree and see the point this article makes? I’m doubtful that this style does that. It might bring awareness but I dont think it changes minds…if that’s even the point of this article.

driversuz

No it’s not the point. The point is twofold: to bring the issue into view, and to get people to care enough about it to begin thinking. If their “caring” happens to take the form of rage, so be it.

Think of us as digging and blasting through a hostile wilderness, making way for a paved roadway along what has heretofore been a faint footpath trodden only by a few brave pioneers. This is how far men’s rights have fallen behind women’s rights (and privileges.)

Mims

Ok just wanted to know the point. If you see it that way, great. By “fallen behind” do you mean they’ve lost certain rights or that women have gained more rights than necessary?

driversuz

Women now have rights that men never had; we also have policy-driven privileges which discriminate against men. Some of those policies are written into law (DOJ definition of “rape” vs “sexual assault,” Rape Shield laws which violate due process, the draft…) and some are enforced via the threat of withdrawing federal funding.

If your interest is genuine, you should spend some time reading our archives (try the less controversial articles) our “facts” page and our wiki.

Kind of grossed out by everything this article is. It’s too broad; too generalised. While I agree with you that men are often trampled in every way by angsty feminists, I sort of feel like the rest of the “normal” female population are being unfairly painted with the same brush. I used to hate feminists until I met one that embodies the true meaning of the term. I don’t think it’s cool to brush off rape – not for anyone. I also don’t think it’s cool to separate the genders into who is, and who is not the “real victim”. Equality needs to happen, but pissing off a lot of people whose mother/sister/girlfriend/daughter/wife was raped (as in violent, forced, penetrative sex) isn’t going to do much. In fact, it’ll probably do just the opposite and push men even further into the crevice we’ve been forced into by society. I’ve read the article a few times. I do see your points. I agree with nearly all of them. Though, I don’t agree with your delivery (though it is clever) because whether you think so or not – rape is an incredibly sensitive issue for both male and female victims. Your title kind of makes it seem like you’re degrading women, and I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing – that’s just how it comes across. I also don’t think that one person can decide what does or does not constitute rape based on technicalities. It should pretty much constitute any emotionally-damaging forced and unwanted sexual assault where consent was clearly not present. You tell the other commenters to set the emotions aside, but I really don’t think that’s possible. It’s an emotional thing. Maybe I feel like that because I personally know someone who was violently assaulted. Maybe my opinion is wrong. I just don’t think pissing a large quantity of people off is going to do anything positive for your cause. You have some good points, but angry people won’t see them. Still think it’s full of decent ideas though.

PolySciMaster

YOU ARE DISGUSTING. You are telling a woman that she is too traumatized by a rape that “didnt happen” to determine if she was actually raped?!?!?! Do humanity a favor and take a long walk on a short pier. Your mother must be so embarrassed that she birthed you.

driversuz

Are you referring to Mary Koss, the SUBJECT of the article, who dictated to the CDC which sexual assault victims are rape victims, and which are not? Or are you referring to the author, who merely exposed the cunt?

ac05jn

“Do you think 1 in 4 men have been raped?” no, it’s higher than that. 1 in 3.5 men worldwide have been raped with a knife in childhood alone; that number jumps to ~50-90% in the usa.

“redefined rape from a standard that had been applied since 1929. It
now defines rape as, “[T]he penetration, no matter how slight, of the
vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a
sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” This is
according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In other words, to be a rape, it must involve penetration, which makes male rape victims legally invisible.”
-false [partially]… glans and interior foreskin are internal organs, like eyes and eyelids they are mucous membranes. though, you are right about men being invisible.

““forced sex,” and then changes it to “unwanted” sex and ultimately to “ambivalent” sex.”
ultimately to “just sex”. men and women must be separated! see movie ‘the island’ -“proximity rule”. after all, we can’t have women start caring about men when feminists are openly planing/plotting to kill off 90+% of us

Blink101

This article is very inflammatory, and the author fully discloses that it is purposefully offensive, so I don’t see the point in complaining about its nature. Rather, I think we should stick to the issue the article raises irregardless of how well or not it addresses said issue: forced penetration is not considered rape. I was under the impression that when feminists wanted rape laws redefined to include both genders it would be a given that forced sex is wrong whether the victim is penetrating or penetrated! I never even considered that the wording excluded men forced to penetrate. The way men are taught to think of rape worries me. I can’t recall the specific article I read to cite it, but I have seen literature which demonstrated that only about 10% of men would admit to being raped yet when asked if they had been forced to penetrate it jumped to 40%. Many of them, and apparently our justice system, didn’t even consider it rape which horrified me to no ends. This is a very serious issue and acting as though empathy is a zero-sum game is not how we should discuss the matter. Male and female victims should be respected and not told that they have to meet any criteria beyond being forced into non-consensual sex; in all the forms sex can take, and in all the circumstances it can be initiated under. Consent is the presence of a (fully sober) yes; not the absence of a no. If a man didn’t consent and he was forced to have sex then it is rape no matter what body part was assaulted. I’d like to see a further examination in following articles on why the law hasn’t been changed by lawmakers. The vast majority of legal representatives are male, as is the upper staff at the CDC, so it seems they should be more sensitive to the issue and want male victims to be better recognized. I think that would be more informative about how to correct the problem than focusing our ire on a feminist who has some influence but no real decisive authority within either organization.

Hernandez

If you haven’t been directly raped or sexual assaulted just shut up and leave the topic alone (I’m talking to those in the comments who are raging and raving at the article). None of you get to paint what color you think this article is. Yes it aggravated me and it was painful to read, but I understand it’s point. I don’t agree with painting women as the downfall to how men are treated after rape and sexual assault. That’s all on the new definition of rape and sexual assault. That’s all on Koss. It’s not on me. It’s not on anyone else but them. It still sucks. It definitely does, and if I can make a difference in how they are treated, then I gladly will if someone could point me towards a petition or other legal document of some sort. But to think that women are able to make it away after being raped or sexual assaulted is still false. None of us get the treatment we need. I filed a historical document against my offender. I can’t press charges or anything else because there is no evidence to prove against him, which I acknowledge fairly. However, it has been a year since I filed the paperwork, and come to find out it was tossed in a shredder because it didn’t seem important. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations tossed out my paperwork because it wasn’t against someone they could kick out of the Air Force. It was againot a civilian and not part of their agenda. It was supposed to be sent to the local police department, but they never heard of it. They never saw the information, mind you it was just for historical record in the case that he was ever accused of sexual assault at a later time. It was only going to be a supporting document. Victims of sexual assault and rape aren’t treated properly to begin with, so let’s not pit ourselves against each other.
Sincerely,
A Victim of Rape and Sexual Assault

Participated on what end? Time in service doesn’t make you the go to expert on the matter. Based on my experience and the experience of others in this process it doesn’t work out for the victim unless it’s against another Airman. Perhaps I should have clarified that for you.

Grumpy Old Man

No, but being directly involved with the SARC for a number of years gives me a reasonable view.

“If you haven’t been directly raped or sexual assaulted just shut up and leave the topic alone ”

Yes by all means lets leave the discussion to the victims. Never mind the principles of the Constitution.

Hernandez

Obviously you failed to understand my post, as that wasn’t targeted at you but rather those in the comments ranting about this article. I’m aware of the principles of the Constitution, as that is why you were able to make such a blatantly uninformed comment. However, you have now brought that entirely to my attention now. If you have no prior experience, kindly leave the victims be and let us make our own informed decisions. Thank you.

Your complaint of assault was treated callously, with disregard to what happened to you as if it were unworthy of attention or the effort of even referring it to the civil police.

That is exactly what happens to men who are victims of sexual assault and all manner of other abuses, over and over again, either because they are not regarded as victims at all, or not victims worthy of of attention or effort on the part of the authorities.

You say you understand the point of the article; how, then, do you reconcile that with giving the appearance of telling male victims whether they have the right to feel that they were victims or not? Who are you to make such a judgement, however dreadful your own experience?

If you take issue with specific comments on this article rather than the article itself, why do you not address yourself to those, or even cite examples of what you think is wrong?

[BTW, strictly speaking, the US Constitution (and particularly the 1st Amendment) does not apply here so no, the Constitution is not responsible for permitting comments with which you disagree.]

Hernandez

Once again, reread the context of my post. I never said a negative thing about male victims. You can read my previous comments if need be, but I stand where I was prior. I feel that I have already beaten this subject to death.

Bryan Scandrett

I suggest you actually read the article, but get that voice in your head to shut up while you do. It’s clouding your ability to see there’s more than one kind of victim in the world and they deserve justice and a voice just as much as anyone.

Well, okay, except you made it quite clear that you think that those who are not victims have no right to an opinion (a point of view with which I disagree, but that’s by the by):

If you haven’t been directly raped or sexual assaulted just shut up and leave the topic alone […] None of you get to paint what color you think this article is.

and

If you have no prior experience, kindly leave the victims be and let us make our own informed decisions.

You have absolutely no way of knowing what’s in any given person’s background or what abuse they may have suffered. Of knowing who, indeed, are victims. How, then, can you say who has a right to an opinion and who doesn’t?

Bryan Scandrett

Unfortunately, when addressing instances of male disadvantage or
female power in this society, offence is a necessary evil. We are a
culture blinded and brainwashed by decades (arguably millenia) of
disinformation and propaganda about men and women. We are also a species
of animal more or less hardwired to take a dim view of compassion for
men and boys. This leaves us with few tools to rattle people out of
complacency and into a thoughtful discussion of those issues.
Second note: Male victims of sexual assault by women who are
frequently told that what happened to them is funny or something they
should be proud of, by cops, the popular culture, even so-called
friends, will understand the exact intent of this article. –PE

You’re intentionally ignoring the point of the article and the purpose of the site, for the stated aim of silencing the male voice.
Literally, as a stated rape victim, you attempt to order men to shut up.
At AVfM.
A bare faced assumption of gynocentric priority over male victims and their voices.
Women get transgressed and sometimes do not get justice for their pain.
Males get transgressed more often, are routinely denied justice, and also get falsely accused of being the transgressors for any trivial reason, resulting in routine punishment, in and out of the judicial system.

Hernandez

Every comment aimed at me has failed to understand the context of my post. I am not silencing any victims, I am expressing my humble opinion that people who have not been through a similar experience should not be the ones making decisions on the behalf of the victim. I never once stated the silencing of male victims. I stated that no victim is ever treated properly after the fact whether they make the choice to report or not. I took no offense at all with the contents of this article and I find it humorous that the context of my post, which never once argued against the article except to say that Kos and the definition of rap is directly responsible for how male victimso are treated. As a victim myself, I know that men do not get the respect or treatment they deserve from law enforcement, SAPR programs, or even loved ones. I have repeatedly advocated for male and female victims. We both deserve better and I only asked if anyone knew a petition or some other legal course of action to help male victims of rape with better treatment. Thank you for your reply, but please verify the context rather than outright attack me.

If that is what you meant, perhaps that is what you should have said. Thus far everyone who has read your comment had apparently misunderstood it. You certainly didn’t say anything about people making decisions “on behalf” of victims.

To accuse me of being “blatantly uninformed” is rather ironic, don’t you think, since my “information” was your comment? Feel free to backpedal, or at least to blame someone else for your own careless wording.

Hernandez

I also never said anything against men in general. If you peruse my post it is clear in that sense. I have reread it several times and have yet to find a line discredit or exclude males in any sense. Only one individual seemed to understand what I posted and he called the poor treatment of victims BS (I am paraphrasing). One person understood and negated the concept, the other three misread the context. I will not backpedal, I will only leave it as it is and allow you fine gentlemen to accuse me of more inhumane behaviors. I hope you have a good day, and thank you for the conversation.

Bryan Scandrett

So you no longer wish to defend your position as THE rape expert we must defer to? Can we go back to our conversation now you’re leaving?

Bryan Scandrett

‘I am expressing my humble opinion that people who have not been through a
similar experience should not be the ones making decisions on the
behalf of the victim.’
Nothing humble about telling others to STFU, I orta know, it’s a big part of my job here.
‘I never once stated the silencing of male victims’
No-one has said you did. Your attempt was to silence the conversation.
‘I stated that no victim is ever treated properly after the fact whether they make the choice to report or not.’
And that’s a bare face lie. You have zero knowledge of all victims.
All this reply has to offer is some weaseling out of the disagreement you now face.

Bryan Scandrett

Strike 1:

This is a friendly reminder that this is an activist site, not a discussion board. Please read this important announcement for a better understanding of this environment. Please also reread our Comment Policy, in particular the bits about misandry and misogyny, general attack, general insult (particularly with respect to staff and authors) and general contempt for the work AVfM does.

“None of us get the treatment we need.” Actually, some of you don’t need treatment at all. Some rape victims cope and move on without treatment. Some seek treatment and end up worse, because treatment can suck.

Being a rape victim does not make you an expert on rape.

Learning64

Fuck you

Bryan Scandrett

No thanks

Bryan Scandrett

You have been banned either because you have completely ignored the purpose of this site or for a violation of Comment Policy (general insult (particularly with respect to staff and authors)). [Ref: 7908]

KCMew

This is a very convoluted piece of writing, which deviates itself from the title and jumping to various conclusions yet stuffed with guilt tripping here and then. The Koss data presents clear enough of evidence for the author’s claim. So there really isn’t the need to set the tone that attempts strongly to hold someone emotional hostage, then takes and sharp turn to passive aggressive “if you can’t agree with me then I will make you very emotionally painful” premise, then self pity, and all the baggage that gets in the way of illuminating the theme. I truly think the author cannot rationalize emotion with facts skillfully, to the point he is acting exactly like the people he despises. There are a lot of ways to advocate for rape victims, I’m sure guilt baiting the readership really doesn’t win anyone over to concentrate on the core issue – why do readers want to feed positive intentions to people that bite the hand that feeds them?

This is a friendly reminder that this is an activist site, not a discussion board. Please read this important announcement for a better understanding of this environment. Please also reread our Comment Policy, in particular the bits about general attack and trolling.

Thank you. [Ref: 8156]

Additional remarks:

“There are a lot of ways to advocate for rape victims, I’m sure guilt baiting the readership really doesn’t win anyone over to concentrate on the core issue…”

True; MRAs have been doing this for decades. Did you know that? No? Neither did anybody else, until Paul Elam started baiting EVERYONE.

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